Baseball Historians

Man, that sure was quick.  The Cubs came into the playoffs with the best record in the National League and left after just three playoff games in a sweep at the hands of Dodgers.  The Cubs scored a grand total of just six runs in the series and while that’s never going to cut, when [...]

Nam Y. Huh/AP
After Ryan Dempster so boldly predicted a World Series title during Spring Training, Cubs fans the world over collectively stuck their heads into a pillow and screamed. Surely the team’s fate was sealed because, well, it’s the Cubs and they just don’t win World Series.
 
Well, four months later and Dempster doesn’t seem [...]

 
Urgh, I just woke up and it’s about an hour before game time, so I will keep this short and sweet.
Aramis Ramirez is nothing short of an animal. He’s hitting over .400 with 16 RBI in close and late game situations this season and three of those RBI came last night when he broke a [...]

Are you afraid of being one of those lame people who are put into a coffin and buried after you die? Fear not old Cubs fans, Dennis Mascari has come up with a way to guarantee that Alfonso Soriano’s awful fielding will continue to haunt you into the after life.
He’s going to have you interred [...]

 
When the Cubs are playing ugly, I have to think of something nice. Marrisa Miller in a Cubs jersey doesn’t get much better. In fact, every time I look into her eyes I lose my train of thought. Wait, what just happened? Where am I? Woah. 
Oh, that’s right, there was a game yesterday afternoon and [...]

 
I planned to write a piece about how the CC Sabathia deal would effect the Cubs the rest of the season. I even had nice charts and graphs made up to prove my points. OK, so maybe I didn’t have that, but I was prepared to make the argument that Chicago needed to do something, [...]

 
It’s difficult to put into words what it’s been like following the Cubs this season (yes, I may have died here on this here site, but I have been watching everyday). It’s not that you get used to the losing seasons or that you’re expecting the other shoe to drop.
But, seriously, it’s been 31 years [...]

 
The Cubs continued their Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act, this time in Tampa, after an 8-3 loss.
It was the first time this season that Chicago had lost three straight games, so the losing streak isn’t that alarming. It’s actually impressive that the team went this long before its first three-game losing streak.
What’s alarming, and [...]

On Tuesday, Cubs manager Lou Piniella decided to tweak the lineup and insert Kosuke Fukudome into the leadoff spot.
Fukudome promptly grounded out on the first pitch of the game.
It’s been that kind of week for the Chicago.

The Cubs won another game, 7-2 over the Braves, in front of a friendly crowd at Wrigley. Ho hum.
 
The real news of last night’s game was the loss of leftfielder Alfonso Soriano, who broke his ring finger after being hit by a pitch in the second inning. All estimates point to a six week absence [...]

 
Let’s cut to the chase. The Cubs are really good this year, at least record wise. Thanks to a 9-6 win over the Padres Tuesday night, the team’s ninth straight win, Chicago has the most wins in the Majors and leads the central division by 3.5 games over St. Louis. The Cubs haven’t won this [...]

 
After not feeling so hot over the weekend I’m ready to get back into the swing of things and there’s not better time than now to pick up where I left off. The Cubs proved once again that you can go home again and that it’s probably a good idea to do so. Chicago finished [...]

 Phil Velasquez/TRIBUNE PHOTO
You know you’re getting old when you start putting lame things like family first in your life. Take me for instance. I’m a young, strapping young man at the ripe age of 22. I love my family, but if I had the opportunity to, say, work at the New York Times or the [...]

 
Kosuke Fukudome has had a rough May. Going into Tuesday night’s ball game Fukudome was hitting a pedestrian .256, down from his .305 average during the first month of the season.
But the power of his very own bobblehead day inspired Mr. Fukudome to blow up, going 2-for-3 with a walk and RBI during the Cubs’ [...]

 
The Cubs were back where they belonged, playing an afternoon game at Wrigley Field. And as they’ve done 19 other times this season, they won a game, this time a 3-1 win over the Dodgers.
Chicago is now 20-8 at home this season and its no surprise the Cubs played so well on the first game [...]

  John Heller/AP
The way things have been going between the Pirates and the Cubs you’d thing the more they’d play, the worse off Pittsburgh would be. But that wasn’t the case Saturday night when the Pirates edged out a 5-4 win over the Cubs in 14 innings.
Kerry Wood blew his fourth save of the year and [...]

 
Claude McKay may know a thing or two about the Cubs’ troubles. They still haven’t figured out this whole winning on the road thing. Following an 8-2 homestand, Chicago had a great opportunity to use that momentum to win its first series on the road since the second week of April. Instead, the Cubs dropped [...]

 
Why does Ryan Dempster look so stressed? He’s probably upset about giving up a fourth-inning grand slam to Houston’s Hunter Pence. Or that he walked two batters leading up to the grand salami. Or that his potent offense disappeared in a park made for an explosive offense. Regardless, he’s upset after a 4-2 loss to [...]

 
I never hit an inside-the-park home run in my baseball playing days, but I did hit a triple once and as I rounded second, the sight of third base was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It wasn’t because I was excited about getting my first triple. I was just so damn happy [...]

Aside from eating, sleeping and playing videogames there aren’t too many things I loved to do six years ago that I’m still doing now.
Baseball? Like most, my career ended at high school graduation. Hanging out with my freinds? Gas is much to expensive to drive around and no friend is worth more than $4 a [...]

 
 After a 10-game homestand, North Siders must say goodbye (sniff) to their team for seven whole days while they make two road trips to Houston and then, yes, Pittsburgh. But before the Cubs left for the week, they made sure to end the homestand on a good note with a 4-3 win over the Pirates.
Chicago [...]

 
The “cut Soriano” faction of Cubs Nation is getting quieter with each passing day. Chicago’s No.1 hitter led off Friday afternoon’s game with another home run (his third lead off home run in four games) and jacked a three-run home run in his second at bat during a 7-4 win over the Pirates. Better known [...]

 
I could go into Ryan Dempter’s impressive 12 strike outs in 8-1/3 innings. Or the Cubs’ sixth win in seven games, a 4-0 shutout over the Padres, Thursday. But who cares about all that. It was the first day of the Jim Edmonds era in Chicago.
So, what did we learn from Edmonds’ first day on [...]

 
I’m new to Cub fandom, so I’m pretty indifferent to the Jim Edmonds deal. While I’ve always hated the Cardinals, I never had a problem with Edmonds. In fact, I sorta-kinda respected him as a defensive player. But I’m not going to defend the Cubs’ decision to go after the guy.
First and foremost, Cubs fans [...]

 
The Cubs stormed out of the gate but then stumbled along the rest of the way during a 4-3 loss to the Padres.
Chicago scored three runs in the first two innings thanks to a leadoff home run from Alfonso Soriano (his 4th career lead off dinger) and a two-run double in the second inning from [...]

 
The only thing more surprising than the Cubs sweeping Arizona this weekend was Jay Mariotti writing something positive about the team. Well, sort of.
While Mariotti downplays the whole idea of revenge (I say screw it and play it up big time!), he does grudgingly acknowledge there is a pretty good baseball team on the North [...]

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. So it was fitting that a chill hung over Wrigley Field while the Cubs completed a three-game sweep of the Diamonbacks with a 6-4 win. In case you forgot, (which is highly unlikely), Arizona was the team completing a three-game sweep in October during last year’s [...]

 
 The Cubs started their longest home stand of the season (10 games) Friday afternoon and it didn’t take long for them to get comfy.
After Arizona’s Chris Young went yard off Ted Lilly, again, to give the D-Backs a 1-0 lead, the lefty starter was lights out and Chicago went on to win 3-1.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Alfonso Soriano has the second-worst on-base percentage of any playing leading off in the National League. On the Cubs alone, Soriano has the third worst percentage. But that means nothing to GM Jim Hendry.
On Wednesday he publicly defended Lou Piniella’s decision to keep Soriano in the lead off spot:

 
Welcome back to the starting rotation Jon Leiber. You’ve been missed by fans and Major League hitters alike.
Lieber probably needed a hug after giving up four home runs in the first inning to the Reds. Even if that hug came from a giant flesh-eating wild animal.
But give him credit. He lasted one more inning than most [...]